Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Foreign policy is not for amateurs. Witness America’s
current foreign policy, led, not just by one amateur, but by a band of
amateurs.

Thomas Sowell makes the same point, but in a different
context. He is asking: Who do you trust to know enough to manage the government and to make the right
appointments to the Supreme Court:

If ever
there was a time to choose a president with depth, rather than glitter or
glibness, this is it.

Whatever
the achievements of anyone in some other field, we cannot afford a novice in
the complex world of politics and government at a time of grave dangers at home
and internationally.

Foreign policy amateurs do not know enough to grasp the
realities on the ground. So they create a fiction and ride it into the ground.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the Obama administration’s management of
the Middle East. The results are painfully clear to all who can see. They are
even clear to those who can barely see.

Given the Obama-engineered rise of ISIS and the expanding influence
of Iran in the region, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has moved off of the
front pages. Behind the scenes the Obama administration and politically correct
European governments have been trying to pressure Israel into bowing down to
Islam. The result has been a new intifada, more terror tunnels in Gaza, and,
perhaps most importantly, a significant political realignment in the region.

Over
the weekend, U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power came to Jerusalem to
preach the virtues of a two-state solution. Her case would be unarguable if the
Palestinian state to be created alongside Israel were modeled on Costa
Rica—democratic, demilitarized, developing, friendly to outsiders.

But the
likelier model is Gaza, or Syria. Why should Israelis be expected to live next
to that? How would that help actual living Palestinians, as opposed to the
perpetual martyrs of left-wing imagination? And why doesn’t the U.S. insist
that Palestinian leaders prove they are capable of decently governing a state
before being granted one?

The Obama administration, remaining true to the influence of
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has consistently joined so-called European progressives
in siding with the Palestinians. By the terms of its fiction, the Palestinians
are the new international proletariat, a people of color oppressed by the
forces of Western civilization, liberal democracy and free market capitalism.
That would mean: oppressed by Israel.

Or, as Stephens says: “perpetual martyrs of left-wing
imagination.”

Stephens believes that Obama is married to the fiction of he
himself as the Savior who will rescue the world from… American hegemony. He has
set it as his task to undermine American power and greatness, by kowtowing to
Islamist tyrants and becoming a champion of the Palestinian cause.

In Stephens’ words:

Mr.
Obama has been incapable of asking himself [questions about the reality of the
situation in Gaza], lest a recognition of facts intrude on the narrative of a
redemptive presidency. But a great power that cannot recognize the dilemmas of
its allies soon becomes useless as an ally, and it becomes intolerable if it
then turns its strategic ignorance into a moral sermon.

Obama has lost Iraq, has empowered the Iranians, has turned
Libya into an anarchic terrorist state and has alienated all of our traditional
allies in the region. Great job, Barack!

But, political leaders tend to adjust to changing realities,
and a grand realignment is currently taking place in the Middle East. Stephens
reports on it from Israel, so he presents only one angle, but the new alliances
between Israel and the Arab Sunnis are certainly worth our attention.

Beyond that, Prime Minister Netanyahu—a man who bears the
distinction of being the only national leader Obama has consistently treated
with contempt—has begun to forge other strategic alliances around the world.
The only exception being the pro-Palestinian European socialists.

As for what Stephens calls a “de facto Sunni-Jewish
alliance,” or “a coalition of the disenchanted,” the evidence is clear:

On
Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon publicly shook hands
with former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal at the
Munich Security Conference. In January, Israeli cabinet member Yuval
Steinitz made a trip to Abu Dhabi, where Israel is opening an office at a
renewable-energy association. Turkey is patching up ties with Israel. In June,
Jerusalem and Riyadh went public with the strategic talks between them. In
March, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi told the Washington
Post that he speaks to Mr. Netanyahu “a lot.”

As for the rest of the world, Netanyahu has done what Obama
said he would do: he has pivoted toward Asia.

Stephens explains:

In
October, Israel hosted Indian President Pranab Mukherjee for a
three-day state visit; New Delhi, once a paragon of the nonaligned movement
that didn’t have diplomatic ties to Israel for four decades, is about to spend
$3 billion on Israeli arms. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who
is personally close to Mr. Netanyahu, sees Israel as a model for economic
reinvention. Chinese investment in Israel hit $2.7 billion last year, up from
$70 million in 2010. In 2014, Israel’s exports to the Far East for the first
time exceeded those to the U.S.

In Europe there are currently a few beacons of hope in the
socialist darkness. Stephens believes, quite correctly, that European socialist
governments have sided with the Palestinians in order to placate their large
Muslim populations:

Then
there is Europe—at least the part of it that is starting to grasp that it can’t
purchase its security in the coin of Israeli insecurity. Greece’s left-wing
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras used to lead anti-Israel protests. But
Greece needs Israeli gas, so he urges cooperation on terrorism and calls
Jerusalem Israel’s “historic capital.” In the U.K., Prime Minister David Cameron’s
government is moving to prevent local councils from passing Boycott, Divestment
and Sanctions (BDS) measures against Israel.

Just an aside for a moment. Having just gone through a general election in Canada, I am sorry to say, but the momentum that The Bern is starting to show, especially amongst the young, is eerily reminiscent to what happened here with Justin.

I am going to make a bold prediction and call The Bern as your next President today.

Grand. Then we'll have at least four more years of a bloviating, humorless, intolerant ideologue who despises humanity -- if he can allow that his opponents are human at all -- and has no executive experience, nor a private sector employment history. No hope, no change.

You forgot the corollary: Everyone is an amateur (even as amateurs are not equal.)

I know, neocons like Bret Stephens are not amateurs. He's 42 years old according to wikipedia, and as a journalist, he's spent his life gathering information from the best amateurs he can find, to confirm his own biases. (And he wrote a book about his fear that the U.S. is heading into its newest reactionary isolationism just when the world needs us to be the biggest bully on the block to keep the smaller bullies in line.)

No, whatever failings Obama and Company have in their amateur status, I'll take them over Bush and Company any day. I have no wish to go back to the olden days when we started wars on the rationale "He tried to kill my daddy."

OTOH, surely Obama's "Drone Wars" can't end well either, and karma will bite back and sooner or later we're going to live in a world of Police Drones over the U.S. fighting "terrorists" who happen to live next door. (And then we'll really regret passively allowing Obama disarming of America.)

But until that government overreach hits home (literally) I'll hope for Leo G's prediction and forgive IAC's despair.

It will be curious if the Socialist Hippy from Vermont can play "war" with the big boys. But I have a feeling we're going to have bigger economic worries of our own making, much bigger than religious fanatics with box cutters to ruin our day.

What I see coming in the next 15 year is "The end of globalization" (or James Howard Kunstler's "The Long Emergency"), and so the good thing about isolationism is we clean up your own backyard first, and then when the 500 million refugees start coming out way, they can camp there.

JHK isn't very happy right now, but he does seem to enjoy not being happy. It does look like there's a chance for Obama's happy ending to get us through 2016, but no good bets for the next president.http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/repricing-reality/-------It ought to be a foregone conclusion that Mr. Obama’s replacement starting January 20, 2017 will preside over conditions of disorder in everyday life and economy never seen before. For the supposedly thinking class in America, the end of reality-optional politics will come as the surprise of their lives....If you are a thinking person, the months ahead might be your last chance to protect whatever wealth you have and to move to some part of the country where, at least, you can grow some of your own food and become a useful part of a social and economic network that might be called a community.----

Sestamibi, the Israelis have the recognition, knowledge, and understanding that pretty much everyone within a 500, maybe 1000-mile radius, wants to kill them. Concentrates the mind, it does, having to survive in a hostile world. American Jews don't have it.